Criminology Concepts: Labeling, Conflict, and Data Measurement

Posted on Jan 18, 2026 in Psychology and Sociology

Criminological Paradigms

  • Interactionism
  • Critical Theory

Key Principles of Labeling Theory

The focus is on what happens after the action, not what preceded or caused the action.

Primary Deviance

  • Occasional or situational behavior that may be excused or rationalized by the actor or the audience.
  • The initial act of deviance that goes relatively unpunished.

Secondary Deviance

  • Deviant behavior triggered by social reactions that follow primary deviance.
  • Deviance that occurs after a person is labeled criminal.

Deviance Typologies (Becker)

  • Conformist: No rule broken + No perceived deviant.
  • Pure Deviant: Rule broken + Perceived deviant.
  • Secret Deviant: Rule broken + No perceived deviant.

Moral Entrepreneur

Not always bad or negative.

  • Rule Creators: Someone who expresses a conviction that a threatening social evil must be combatted.
  • Rule Enforcers: Someone who implements and imposes rules (e.g., police, courts, and judges).

Policy Responses and Social Reactions

Radical Nonintervention

Perspective that nothing should be done with or to juveniles who violate the law. Punishment only serves to label and isolate youth from legitimate/prosocial roles.

Retrospective Interpretation

The process by which people re-interpret an individual’s behavior in light of new information concerning that individual.

Diversion Programs

Programs intended to reduce labeling and stigmatization, avoid lost opportunities, and reduce the overall caseload for the system.

Person-First Language

Shift from crime-first language to person-first language (e.g., “person with a criminal conviction”).

Stigma Management Strategies

Secrecy, Withdrawal, Education

Stigma

The primary mechanism through which people experience collateral consequences of criminal records.

Defiance Theory

Four Conditions for a Defiant Response

  1. The offender perceives the punishment as unfair.
  2. The offender feels stigmatized by the punishment.
  3. The offender does not feel shame.
  4. The offender is not well bonded to society.

Ban the Box (BTB) Policies

Policies that restrict employers from inquiring about criminal histories on initial job applications (it does not prohibit later inquiries).

BTB Effectiveness

  • Evidence It Works: (Honolulu 2015 study) The BTB law influenced the reoffending of Black and non-Black people similarly.
  • Evidence It Doesn’t Work: Statistical Discrimination: Employers make assumptions based on observable characteristics (race, class, gender).

Self-Selection: Why People Don’t Apply for Jobs

  1. Anticipatory stigma
  2. Application burnout
  3. Perceptions of unfriendly occupations/industries

Conflict and Consensus Theories

Conflict Theory

  • Society has competing groups with different levels of power and conflicting interests.
  • Laws are created by and serve the interests of the powerful elite.

Consensus Theory

  • Society is stable, where most people share common values.
  • Laws reflect the collective will of the people and are designed to protect society.

Marxist Concepts in Criminology

Alienation

People lose control over creative faculties.

  • Worker lacks control over the products of labor.
  • Worker lacks control over the process of labor.

Instrumental Marxism

Base determines superstructure (elite power chooses law for their benefit).

Structural/Symbolic Marxism

Superstructure is autonomous (people consent without being forced to consent).

Group Conflict Theory

  • Political protests
  • Labor disputes
  • Union disputes
  • Racial/ethnic clashes

Turk’s Theory: Criminalization Likelihood

Criminalization is most likely to happen when there is HIGH congruence among BOTH cultural and social norms/enforcers & resisters. (Both sides have the same understanding of the rules.)

Social Reality Construction of Criminal Conceptions

Conceptions of crime are constructed and spread throughout society by various ways; the most effective is media.

The Bureaucratic Myth of the Law

  • Rigid hierarchies
  • Rules and standardized procedures
  • Self-preservation and expansion
  • Impersonal decision-making
  • Selective enforcement

Goal Substitution

When an organization replaces its official mission with self-serving policies that make operations easier, increase power, or secure resources (e.g., agencies shift their goal from “protect and serve”).

“Gap” in Law

Examples: U.S. Copyright Laws, tax evasion, labor laws.

Selective Nonenforcement

Laws are facially neutral but applied disparately (e.g., stop and frisk).

Other Criminological Perspectives

Left Realism

Encourages paying close attention to street crime and crime affecting the poor.

Feminist Criminology

  • Radical: Focus on patriarchy.
  • Marxist: Focus on capitalism.
  • Socialist: Focus on patriarchy and capitalism.

Examples of Integrated Theories

  1. Social Disorganization
  2. Opportunity Theory
  3. Code of the Street

Criminological Research Methodology

Conditions for Establishing Causality

  1. X and Y must be correlated.
  2. X must precede Y (time-order).
  3. Alternative hypotheses must be ruled out (Non-spuriousness).

Non-Spuriousness

The quality of a relationship between two variables that is not false or based on chance.

Variables

  • X = Independent Variable: The cause that moves Y.
  • Y = Dependent Variable: The outcome.

Measurement Quality

  • Validity: The accuracy of a measurement.
  • Reliability: The consistency of a measurement.

Generalizability

The degree to which you can apply results of a study to a broader context.

Cross-Sectional Data

  • Observations at a single point in time.
  • Involves different groups in the population.
  • Cannot be used to establish causal relationships.

Examples: public opinion poll, U.S. Census.

Life-Course Criminology: Stability and Change

Glueck and Glueck

Established a positive relationship between past and future deviant behavior.

The Life-Course

Defined by transitions and turning points (both good and bad), such as divorce.

Characteristics of Turning Points

  1. “Knife off” the past from the present.
  2. Supervision, monitoring, and social support.
  3. Changes in routine.
  4. Opportunity for identity transformation.

Stability

The consistency of behavior over time.

  • Absolute Stability: Consistency of behavior within individuals.
  • Relative Stability: Consistency of behavior between individuals.

Continuity Mechanisms

  • Cumulative Continuity: Antisocial behavior produces negative consequences, leading to later antisocial behavior.
    Flow: Early antisocial behavior → Negative consequences → Later antisocial behavior.
  • Interactional Continuity:
    1. Traits cause people to interact with their environment in certain ways.
    2. Individuals tend to create the same social situations repeatedly.
    3. The stability in their interactions creates stability in individuals’ behavior.

Perspectives on Antisocial Behavior

  • State Dependence Perspective: Early antisocial behavior indirectly increases the likelihood of later antisocial behavior.
  • Population Heterogeneity Perspective: Early antisocial behavior is linked to later antisocial behavior through underlying traits or propensities for antisocial behavior.

Social Capital

Instrumental or affective resources gained from quality prosocial social ties.

Measuring Crime and Data Issues

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

  • Hierarchy Rule: Only the most serious offense is reported in cases involving multiple crimes (e.g., Assault, Robbery, Homicide).
  • UCR Advantage (Coverage): Most law enforcement agencies submit data, representing 97% of the total US population.

Crime Rate Calculation

(Number of reported crimes / Total population) × 100,000

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

  • NCVS Advantage: Addresses the “dark figure” of crime.

The Dark Figure of Crime

The unreported or unrecorded crimes that exist beyond the scope of official statistics, representing a significant gap between actual criminal activity and what law enforcement and courts capture.

Issues with Definitions (Assault)

Assault is the most common nonlethal violence. Data collection requires clarification on:

  • The role or presence of firearms and other weapons.
  • Whether and how any weapons were used.
  • The extent of injuries threatened or inflicted.

Factors Contributing to Underreporting

  1. Interviewer effects
  2. Series offenses
  3. Recall error/telescoping

Correlates of Crime Reporting

  1. Severity of the crime
  2. Offender characteristics
  3. Victim characteristics
  4. Ecological factors

Note: Increased immigration is negatively associated with crime reporting.

Legal Cynicism

A cultural orientation in which the law and the agents of its enforcement are viewed as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill-equipped to ensure public safety.

Comparison of UCR and NCVS

  • UCR: Data on reported crimes, compiled from law enforcement agencies.
  • NCVS: Data on victimizations, compiled from interviews.

Self-Report Data Disadvantages

  • Sampling
  • Selective loss
  • Falsification
  • Memory decay
  • Interviewer measurement error